John_E

Do wait a year and reapply if: - You are completely gung-ho about academia and your field. - You are okay with applying to more "safety" schools next time. - You don't mind waiting an additional year on top of the many you will be in grad school. Don't reapply if: - You're not ready to face the prospect of receiving a PhD after many years of labor only to find you can't land a job. - You presume that you will receive no funding offers, even if you are accepted to a program next time (funding varies by field). If you go for it, try to cultivate relationships during the interim year with profs at your target schools with whom you would like to work. Read their books, email them questions, etc. Good luck!

It would be better to wait until you're a junior or senior before you check the pulse of the job market(s). They are all pretty bad right now, but that might change in two or three years.

Theory: I second Novick's That Noble Dream. It's for both Americanists and non-Americanists, I think. Writing will be your ticket not only to good grades/impressing your professors, but also to publishing and getting a job. Very crucial. Style: Strunk & White, Elements of Style Williams, Style Content: Weston, A Rulebook for Arguments Good luck!

Thanks Nicolay, good to know.

Just got an email from a school. Back story: I've been accepted with funding, and a TAship. Then the school sent me a letter to the effect that they needed to know if I wanted the TA job, and they needed to know by March 16. They sent me another email today, asking the same thing. I thought we'd gone over this already, but I said it again: I wrote them a very nice email stating that, yes, I did want a TAship. They wrote me back immediately and said, no, they needed to know "whether you accepted our offer of a TAship for fall (as this would also accept our admittance). We would then count on your enrolling in our program for the fall. Please clarify!" I mentioned it to a buddy of mine who's also applying to doctoral in History, and he said Indiana U. wrote him the following: "I realize that you may be considering admission and aid offers from other universities. You should be aware that American universities are party to an agreement that prohibits any of us from forcing applicants to make a decision before April 15." So I'm a little confused. I wrote back to the school asking THEM to "clarify" if they are putting me on the spot. Anybody know about this stuff? Is this alleged agreement true?

William and Mary is known for Colonial History. They are in Virginia, in the "colonial" capital of Williamsburg--lots of re-enactors, etc. It's a nice atmosphere if that's what you study. W&M is also near DC and the Library of Congress/National Archives. Small program but that's sometimes a nice thing.

I called a top choice. Someone who sounded like a student worker answered the phone. This was Hist Dept, not grad admissions. She was very nice, said decisions had indeed been made, notifications would go out "in the next two weeks." I asked, rogueishly, if she could tell me over the phone what my app decision was. She said no. Fair enough--I'm guessing that if it's a no, dept phone-answerers don't want the awkwardness of having to listen to applicants whine. I figure I might do it anyway next time, even if they tell me nothing, just to bypass their pre-emptive system and make their worst nightmare come true: "WHY didn't you let me in? I had good grades... People like me... My mom... Oh, God... Why are you DOING THIS TO ME???!!!! BWAH HAH HAH HOOO HOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!" Cue hysterical sobbing.

I applied there too. Haven't heard anything. Contextually, this year is out of the ordinary for them. Bernie Madoff stole a lot of their money. They are selling their art museum. The economy isn't helping. So funding has some challenges.

Re: Ohio State, a buddy told me 2 days ago that he'd gotten his rejection. Don't know if it was snail mail or email.

The departmental secretary told me, two years ago. My understanding was stipend. May have changed since then though.

In Princeton's defense (and why I'm defending them, I don't know), they give their History PhD students a $40,000-a-year stipend. Not sure if there is service (TA) requirement or not. But it's more money than any other school I've heard of. So they have a lot of hungry people knocking on their door. If I was a Princeton prof, I'd be suspicious of every applicant. "Do you want to come here for the program, or for the money?" They get a little jaded.

Depends what a "top" history program is. According to US News? According to specialists in your field? If you want a general number, I dunno, ballpark maybe between 1 in 10 and 1 in 20, depending.

Congratulations slawkenbergius! Is that your first choice?

You'd think with a $105 application fee, Stanford would be more customer-friendly. I didn't apply, but I almost did.

A buddy of mine got acceptance emails from U. Wisconsin-Madison and UCLA last night. Funding decisions to come later. I'm happy for him. I don't know if he was contacted by "the system," or by profs.

My advice to be the top draft pick 1. High GPA 2. High GRE 3. Writing sample grounded in primary sources, that is good enough to be published in a top journal in your field 4. Recommendations from profs who say you're great (a bad/lukewarm rec will hurt you more than a good rec will help you) 5. One or two peer-reviewed publications. Conferences are nice too, but I've heard publications carry more weight. A good SOP is nice too. But I agree with the above responders, you have a lot of time to decide what you want to do. Academia isn't for everyone, but if you go for it, good luck!

Scenario: you've been accepted to your top choice. But there's no funding. If you go anyway, what are the odds of 1. Paying the first year, and successfully applying for funding (ie TAship, etc) for the following years? One of the profs in my dept did this, at Brandeis, and it worked out. But they admit it was a gamble. Does this vary by school? 2. Finding some other way to remit tuition--going on the university's jobs website and, say, working as a GA for another dept. I did this myself the first year of my MA program, b/c the dept did not offer me funding the first year. It worked out great. I did get a TAship the second year. Does this happen at PhD, or again, does it vary by program?

Sorry habu. 8 slots & 200 applicants is nuts. Though probably that's what I'm looking at also with my schools... Yikes.

Sorry, I meant "competitive with H." I'm getting dyslexic in my old age.

Moving forward, a macro question: It's my understanding that the deciding factor in finding a professorship at a university (starting out) is networking--if people at the hiring institution receive references from people with whom they are already acquainted, that's huge. After that, a candidate's heaviest ammo is publications. Following that, it is the "name" value of the candidate's school. Say candidate Z is going to Zotero University. Candidate H is going to Harvard. Zotero is, well, little-known. H's advantage is not only Harvard, but the profs he knows at Harvard with whom he can network and use connections to get a job. Z does not have those advantages. However, if Z publishes a book (or 2) by the time he finishes dissertation, he will be competitive with Z. Thoughts? True or false? To what degree? Do we really have to stress this much over getting into a top 10 "name" program?

Whoops, error, my verbal GRE was 690 (hope I didn't make that error on an application, ha ha). Yep, I'm betting I'm probably too late for the letter. But ya never know. Waiting to hear back...

I would call them. You will get a better sense of what's going on, what you should do, etc.

Hi y'all, new guy here. I'm in an MA program right now. Have applied to 8 doctoral programs. My field is environmental history. I'm on pins and needles. My GREs are 630v/530q/5.5w... I don't know if that's good enough to get into good programs these days. The verbal is 96% (did they make the test harder last year?), which surprised me. Hopefully it will be OK. I'm freaking out because, duuuuh, I neglected to check the status of my application at Penn State. Deadline was Jan 1. I just now checked the website and found that one of my recommenders' letters has not arrived. Why didn't P.S. notify me? More to the point, why didn't I check? Aaaargh! Now I have to wait 'till Monday to call them. You know what, I'm going to call tomorrow (Saturday), maybe someone will be around. Also, I'll call my prof.